Today we’d like to introduce you to Marion Carol.
Hi Marion, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
What brought me to baking sourdough, was the end of a long journey of working to clean up my families diet. In 2016, my husband was diagnosed with a malignant cancerous tumor in his leg. It was a very sobering year, and through that ordeal, we began to focus more and more on the quality of the foods we were eating. We found that there were easy things we could do – like cutting out junk food and soda, and more difficult elements like eliminating almost all pre-packaged foods, but when it came to finding clean, honest bread, it was very difficult to source.
I did a lot of research on all foods, including breads. I found that one of the most nourishing ways of making bread, that I thought my husband would like, was through a long-ferment, old-world style of naturally leavened bread. I began trying to make this type of bread for us, and failed multiple times. Eventually I was gifted a healthy, mature starter, and it worked! From that point I began baking bread, learning basic recipes and techniques. Soon, I was baking so many loaves to teach myself technique that I was baking more than my husband and I could eat, so I started giving loaves to neighbors. Once I felt that the loaves I was baking were consistently good, I slowed my baking to just what my husband and I would eat, and began to give away less and less to my neighbors. Not long after that, my neighbor asked if she could pay me for a loaf. At one point she had a party at her house, and her guests liked it so much they asked if they could buy the bread too. That really was the Genesis of the bakery.
I began selling the bread out of my house via a porch pick-up, and shortly later started selling at Farmer’s markets. It became quickly apparent that there were a lot of people in my community who were very interested in the kind of bread I was making.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has most certainly not been a smooth road. But, I’ve learned a lot & I know that the path I’m on is the right one. & I will end up exactly where I’m meant to be.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
There are several things that set Fixing a Feast apart from other sourdough bakeries. First, the bread I sell is exactly the same bread I bake for my own family. I ensure the same care and attention to detail is baked into every loaf. This means I use my sourdough starter to naturally long ferment the breads, bringing out the complexity and depth of flavor to each loaf, no commercial yeast is used. Every ingredient I use is curated organic, or better than organic locally sourced ingredients. Without seed oils, preservatives of any kind, or anything artificial whatsoever. The butter, milk, & cheeses I use are organic and grass fed. I source fine quality chocolate chips that are seed oil and preservative free, and contain no emulsifiers or preservatives. One additional detail- I take special care to avoid adding flour to my bakes after fermentation has started. This detail ensures that every grain has the same level of fermentation and protein breakdown. This is important for ease of digestibility, especially for those who are gluten sensitive.
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Fixing a Feast LLC
